


Impenetrable

by RC_McLachlan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Cyborgs, Those Three Years, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4446230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There was a giant hole in it when you first showed up here. Saiyan design or not, your armor was inadequate.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impenetrable

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to [tumblr](http://rcmclachlan.tumblr.com/post/125261244412/if-theres-one-thing-he-hates-more-than-dying-or).

If there’s one thing he hates more than dying or losing to a third-class  _nothing_ , it’s confusion, and yet here he is, staring down at the parcel in his arms without so much as a clue about what to do with it. He runs his fingers over it, and beneath his touch the fibers attempt to pull apart but instead form a united front; impenetrable.

He looks up and doesn’t try to hide the accusation in his voice when he says, “You said you didn’t know where my armor was.”

She shrugs. “That’s not your armor. Or, well, it’s not the armor I sto— _ill_  don’t know the whereabouts of.”

“Nice save,” he says. “So what the hell is this?”

It isn’t meant to be an invitation, but her exhaustion-smudged eyes light up and her lips part in a grin as she launches into an explanation with words like polymer, rheology, hydrophobic, cross-linking, thermosetting—he knows what they mean individually, but together they sail right over his head. He can’t imagine any of her idiot friends asking about the science behind the technology they use on a daily basis; she’s no doubt been forced to limit such discussions to people who speak the language. It took him a few weeks to realize that she uses technical jargon not to make him feel stupid, but because she truly thinks he understands it.

It’s easy enough to tune her out, and he contents himself with watching the way her mouth hugs the curves of her enthusiasm, and he absently strokes the material in his hand. Even through the glove, it feels like water.

He allows her another moment, then breaks in with, “Get to the point.”

The glow of passion in her eyes tempers into something that burns, her smile shrinking until it’s as barbed and wicked as anything he’s ever managed, and she looks at the folded material in his grasp with nonchalant pride. For a moment, he imagines her in the sterile white and gray uniform that all of Frieza’s top scientists donned, and shudders to think of the kinds of things her mind would have conjured with all that technology at her disposal.

“It  _is_  armor,” she says, hands on her hips, smug. “Of my own design.”

The implication rankles, and he feels the phantom shiver of outrage bristle a tail that is no longer there. “That was saiyan design, and it was worlds beyond anything you backwater  _insects_  could--”

“You came here with a giant hole in it,” she railroads right over him. Her eyes spark at the prospect of a fight. “Saiyan design or not, it was inadequate.”

He snorts. “And, what,  _this_  will keep me safe?”

“Yes.”

Said with a steadfast confidence, a bedrock of faith backed by numbers and tests and hypotheses-turned-theories. It hooks into his skin and pulls, and he shifts his weight to his left leg, which has gone taut and begs to be stretched. “Why?”

“Hm?” She runs an oil-stained hand through her hair and then scratches an itch, fluffing it awfully on one side. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Something uncomfortable twinges in his chest and he makes a note to cut back on the staggered push-ups.

“You’re gonna be fighting against things so bad that they sent a guy back in time to warn us about them.” She links her hands together, throws them over her head, and bends backward until there’s an audible pop. She relaxes with a sigh. “Obviously I’m not going to let you at ‘em in shoddy armor. I’ve done a round of initial tests, but it needs an actual practice run. I figure I’ll just monitor you in the gravity simul—”

“What do you want.”

She stops mid-sentence. “Huh?”

“What do you  _want_ ,” he says, drawing each word out, long and sharp.

“It’s a gift, you idiot, I don’t want anything.”

With great reluctance, his unclaws his fingers from where they dig into the armor and tosses it at her feet. His own considerable grip didn’t so much as wrinkle it. “Kindnesses like this come at a price, so what do you want? What could the esteemed Bulma Briefs want in return for such generosity? The patent on it, maybe? It’d be easy to call it a creation of your own, mass produce it, and add it to the glut of your  _conglomerate_. Or the designs of Raditz’s ship, if you haven’t already--”

“Fuck you, Vegeta,” she snarls, her exhaustion and pleasantness giving way to rage. “Just take the damn armor.” 

“Your sniveling fucktoy hasn’t been around lately,” he continues, savoring every word like the sort of wine he should have grown up drinking instead of the swill in the barracks, the sort he wasn’t allowed until he swore absolute fealty to the creature that took his future from him. It’s always loosened his tongue more than he would normally allow, and it seems this is no different. He can’t stop. “Perhaps you want to see what a real man is—”

He catches the balled-up armor easily, but his words slow at the sight of her. If she were a saiyan, it would reflect in her aura, in her ki; since she has neither, it shows in her eyes. He’s so used to seeing tears born of terror, of sorrow, but rage -- he shivers at the prospect of something so deliciously new.

“You can stop right there,” she says, and it’s the threat of a hardened warrior, the statement of a cold queen. “You’re done.”

“Am I?” He genuinely can’t wait to hear the insult that will finally drive him over the edge and sign this miserable planet’s death warrant—cyborgs and Kakarot be damned. He drops the armor to the floor and begins to gather the first wisps of ki in his palm. “Go on, then.”

Inhaling tremulously through her nose, she lifts her chin and says, low, strong, devastating: “You’re going to survive this. I’m going to make sure of it.”

In his hand, the growing ball of energy licks at his palm with a whisper of apology before dissipating, and he curls his fingers into a fist, tight and trembling at his side lest he do something drastic, like cross the ten steps between them and invade her space; reach out for her vulnerable throat, the sweet curve of her jaw, and—

And—

She inhales again, visibly forcing herself into a tenuous calm, and says, “You want to go up against the cyborgs in armor that  _Frieza_  had no problem penetrating? Fine. Be my guest. I’ll figure something else out. But mark my words: you’re not dying. None of you are. I can’t be out there with you when you fight, but you can bet I’m gonna do everything in my power to keep you safe otherwise.”

His tongue is thick when he sneers, “A real saiyan relies on his strength and wits alone.”

“A  _smart_  saiyan would use everything at his disposal,” she volleys. A slow smile forged of broken glass and a crimson cunning curls her face, and he braces himself for the hurt that’s coming. “Maybe that’s why there are only two of you.”

Ki flares in his palm and he lifts his hand, aiming, but her gaze never wavers where it’s locked with his. There is no fear there. None. This is not the same selfish, sobbing woman whom he terrorized on Namek; or perhaps it is and he had been too stupid to look past her beauty to see what lay underneath.

He blinks, and she's wearing the reds and blacks of saiyan royalty, the insignia inlaid over her heart in red. He blinks again, and she is in a stained jumpsuit with a considering lilt to her mouth that suggests she broke him down to his base components and was left wanting.

There isn’t a battle-caused callous to be found on her, but if he were meeting her for the first time, he would have no reason to believe she wouldn’t bring the universe to its knees if she so wished.

A cold wash of sudden, overwhelming terror threatens to send him to the floor, and the ki in his thrall doubles, triples, in size. He can barely see her through the glow.

“I’ll kill you,” he whispers, and means every word.

“No you won’t,” she says just as softly, and speaks nothing but the truth.

With a final shrug, she flicks her gaze to the armor puddled sadly at his feet and then back up to snare his once again. “We’ll begin the second round of tests in the morning. Better rest up; I’m gonna put you through your paces.”

She turns on her heel and leaves him standing in the hall, and as she rounds the corner, he swears he sees the flip of a gold-trimmed crimson cloak—the mark of the queen.


End file.
